CALLING ON DRAGONS

The third ``Enchanted Forest Chronicle'' has the most perfunctory of plots, but fans of Dealing with Dragons and its 1991 sequel will be pleased nonetheless to revisit their favorite characters negotiating Wrede's effervescently logical magic. The evil wizards have stolen King Mendenbar's sword; its loss imperils the forest, and a doughty crew of seven sets out to rescue it: Morwen the witch and two of her talking cats; sensible Cimorene, now queen, and pregnant; magician Telemain, whose parodic technospeak is so relentlessly clever that it's a relief when he falls into a trance; Kazul the dragon; and a blue donkey, a former rabbit, hapless attractor for magic gone awry. There are other amusing new characters here—notably the confirmed traditionalist who helped steal the sword—but mostly the focus is on the comical repartee and the magic itself; a recalcitrant mirror's plaints when it's used as a telephone are laugh-aloud funny. Like return visits to Oz, this doesn't have the original punch but it's still good fun; a cliffhanger close promises another sequel. (Fiction. 11+)